Page 33

AREK

L ara’s face blanches, her power surging back into her body from the scrying pool. My people rush around, preparing for a siege, unaware that our world has been turned upside down.

“She spoke the truth,” I wheeze, pain spiking in my chest, over my heart, where our mate bond lives. “She means to sacrifice herself.”

The scrying pool showed it all.

Kyrie, offering herself to our enemy.

Kyrie, telling Sola that she’s still wounded from what I did to save her.

My stomach churns, then hollows out.

Dario squirms where Morrow holds him by the scruff of his neck, his huge ham hand keeping the traitor from moving.

Lara takes a deep breath, some of the color returning to her cheeks. “She did speak the truth,” she says.

“She can’t have meant it.” Despair will swallow me whole if I let it.

Is this what she felt in the temple? I had no choice.

I did what had to be done to save her.

I rake a hand through my hair. All of this, all of the love I have for her, all of the time I’ve spent trying to show her everything she means to me, and she would throw it all away.

Throw herself away, for Sola.

It doesn’t make sense.

“Think.” Lara’s mouth moves, but it’s Nakush I hear. “Think of what she said. Did she say she wants you dead? Or to die?”

I can hardly think past my anguish, and I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

All I can remember is the look of utter conviction on her face.

The gold of her truth, the sign of her new powers, shimmering in the air for everyone to see the proof of her words.

I swallow bile.

“Kyrie wouldn’t abandon us,” Morrow says.

If he’s disturbed by a god using Lara as a mouthpiece, he doesn’t show it.

“Trust your mate,” Nakush says through Lara, and then the mage blinks, her eyes returning to normal. Lara sags, taking deep, steadying breaths as Caedia loops an arm around her waist to keep her upright.

“I agree with the man version of Lara,” Caedia says.

It’s the first time she’s spoken since we learned Dario used the underground tunnels to deliver an unconscious Tarron to Sola’s priestesses outside the city walls.

Dario’s eyes are slits, his face swollen from the force of my knuckles.

I could lose myself to this rage for an eternity.

“She is doing what she can to get Tarron back. Of course she is, after what Sola’s orders did to her family.”

My eyes squeeze shut, my hands balling into fists. “We could go after her,” I say, knowing all too well that we need to be here, with the last of the Fae, that they need our protection.

“She didn’t betray us, Sword,” Caedia says. “Or Arek, or Death, or whatever it is you want to go by these days. “Kyrie is a loose cannon, but she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. She might be a trained liar too, but she is a good person. I trust her to know what she’s doing.”

The mate bond itches under my skin. Kyrie is hurting. Whether mentally or physically, I don’t know, but I am powerless to do anything but trust her.

To have faith.

Just as Nakush bid me do before we found Dario.

I lift my chin, looking to the sky.

Do I have faith in Kyrie?

Always. Absolutely.

I close my eyes slowly, allowing that faith to grow from a kernel into something larger, something I can hold onto.

Kyrie said she loved me. I felt the truth in those words.

If she isn’t trying to sacrifice herself, then what in the hells is she up to?

“We can’t leave her with them, defenseless.” I growl, opening my eyes.

Lara levels a long look at me. “Kyrie is anything but defenseless,” she says.

“Lara’s right,” Morrow adds. “You turned her into an immortal. I’d say she’s a fair match for the goddess that stole her family and life and tried to use her at every turn.”

“Sola deserves what she gets,” Dario croaks.

Caedia kicks him in the shin. “Shut it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask at the same time.

“Sola always thinks she has the upper hand. Kyrie’s never let anyone keep it, has she?” His lip cracks as he smiles, eyes barely visible through his swollen eyelids. “You’ll get the boy back and a goddess gone. I would stake my life on it.”

I bend towards him, the chains I keep around my power falling away.

He flinches at what he sees in my eyes.

“You may have done exactly that,” I growl.

Any color he had left in his face drains away.

“I’d pray to Kyrie now that she’s successful, or your body will be the first I send to the afterlife.” We’re nearly nose-to-nose, and Morrow’s knuckles whiten on Dario’s neck.

“Hrakan.” One of my warriors calls my name, and I turn on my heel, only too happy to leave Dario to whatever ends Lojad’s chosen has in mind for him.

If I know the god of order and justice, I know that what Morrow metes out to Dario will be exactly what he deserves.

“Tell me,” I bark at the captain, and she nods brusquely at the order.

“Our scouts report a force moving towards the keep. We’ve shored up the defenses at the gate, as well as at the aqueduct flow site.”

“The tunnels remain open?” I ask.

She nods again. “They know they’re there. Now it only remains to see if they’ll take the bait.”

A grim smile stretches across my face, and I glance back at the man Morrow’s still gripping like a wet cat.

“Dario.”

The traitor flinches at his name, the color leaving his face when he clocks my expression.

“You did tell them about the tunnels you took Torran through?”

He nods, ashen.

“Good.”

I cut my gaze to the captain of my guard, and she narrows her eyes. “Shukan protocol?”

“Shukan protocol,” I confirm.

“We have enough charges.” If she’s unsettled by the order, she doesn’t show it.

“The wall will hold,” I tell her. “It was built for occasions like this.”

“We will hold the gate and aqueduct.” Her eyes narrow, and then she jogs away, stopping a group of warriors carrying weapons to the exterior wall.

I inhale through my nose.

I can’t rescue my mate now. My people need me.

All I can do is sit here and trust that Sola takes the tunnels.

And have faith that Kyrie knows what she’s doing.